


Among The Trees

by malinaldarose (coralysendria)



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works
Genre: Community: trope_bingo, Gen, Kid Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-27
Updated: 2013-01-27
Packaged: 2017-11-27 03:29:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/657556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coralysendria/pseuds/malinaldarose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Merry's first visit to the Old Forest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Among The Trees

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to the lovely and talented Bethynyc for the beta.
> 
> This is for the "kidfic" spot on my Trope_Bingo card.

Merry Brandybuck's father, Saradoc, was the Master of Buckland. Merry wasn't quite certain what that meant, but he was pretty sure it was important, because important people quite often stopped at Brandy Hall. Sometimes, they were dwarves, who after the serious parts of the discussions were over, would bounce Merry on their knees while their thick beards tickled his face, and give him beautifully-wrought and intricate toys. Sometimes, elves would come to speak with Saradoc. They weren't as much fun as the dwarves. For all that they smiled at Merry and sometimes presented him gifts, they seemed at the same time as remote as the stars and as cool as the Moon. Much more often Men would come to speak to the Master, and their visits were almost always secretive and swift. They were scruffy, these Men, dressed in worn leather with shabby cloaks pulled tightly about them, weapons near at hand. They frightened Merry, so that whenever he caught sight of one he was quick to hide behind a curtain or under a table.

Then there was Gandalf. Merry thought Gandalf was a Man; though he was bearded like a dwarf, he was too tall to be of that race. He was definitely not an elf.

Gandalf also gave Merry presents. Sometimes his presents were toys like those of the dwarves. Sometimes they were sweets. And sometimes -- just sometimes -- when no one else was watching, he would show Merry magic. Merry always knew when it was to be the latter, because Gandalf would look around furtively, then put a long finger to his lips. "Shhhh, Master Meriadoc," he would say (he always called Merry by his long name). "This will be our little secret, eh?" Then, after Merry had nodded solemnly, his eyes wide, Gandalf would produce little magics: glowing dragons of sparks, butterflies that Merry could chase around the room until they vanished, or even stranger things. The magics would disappear if someone else came into the room, but Gandalf would nod at Merry and then slip him a sweet, and Merry would know that Gandalf was the best person ever.

One day, Merry's father announced that he was going to make his annual journey to Bree, and that this year Merry could come with him. Merry did not think he could possibly be any happier, until his father added, "And Gandalf will be making the trip with us, as he has business there." 

Merry thought he would explode from happiness, and didn't know how he could possibly survive the fortnight until Gandalf arrived. But survive he did, and at last dawned a day that saw the point of Gandalf's grey hat appearing, followed closely by the wizard himself.

Merry greeted him at the gate. "Gandalf! Gandalf! Guess what! We're going to Bree!"

The wizard peered down at him from under beetling brows. "Are we, young Master Meriadoc? Are we, indeed?"

"We are! Papa said that it was time to go to Bree, and he said that because I was seven this year, I could go, and then he said you were going to come, too!" It all rushed out in one breath, and Merry looked hopefully up at the wizard. "You are coming, aren't you, Gandalf?"

The wizard leaned on his craggy staff. "As it so happens, Master Meriadoc, I _do_ have business in Bree, as well as a couple of other places between here and there, and I _did_ agree to travel with your father. He never said anything to me about an impertinent young hobbit traveling with us, however."

The look he slanted down at Merry was not at all encouraging. "You don't mind, do you, Gandalf? It's all right, isn't it? Please don't say I can't come." Merry's lip trembled.

Gandalf's smile was hidden in his beard, but Merry saw his eyes crinkle. "Oh, very well, Master Meriadoc. Who am I to forbid it when your father has already made you a promise? And now, my young hobbit," and here he crouched down so that he was very close to the ground and offered a crooked arm to Merry, "up you come. My legs are far too long to shorten my steps up to the house. I trust your father will be driving the wagon on our journey." He scooped Merry up and strode off to the Hall.

The following morning saw them off on their journey. Merry had never been far from the Hall before. He had gone to Tookland with his mother and father to visit his Took cousins, but that wasn't as far away as Bree! The very name conjured visions of peculiar people and odd customs. Why, it was said that Men and hobbits lived together there! Merry was so excited he was bouncing on his seat as his father drove the cart away from the Hall. He waved wildly to his mother until a bend in the road hid the Hall from view. 

Merry's excitement carried him through the second day of their journey before he began to be bored. By this time, they had reached the edge of Buckland and were following the road along the border. On the right of their little cart, the Hedge, a high, thick wall of neatly kept greenery, rose, blocking Merry's view of the Old Forest. "Can we go into the Forest, Papa?"

Merry quailed at the stern look his father turned on him. "No, Merry, we cannot. The Forest is no place for anyone, let alone children. Our road takes us near it, but no more than that. The trees do not like hobbits, especially in these days since the last great burning." With that, he turned back to the business of driving the cart. Merry looked up at Gandalf, hoping for support, but the wizard's eyes were intent on the Hedge, as though he searched for something.

They camped that night in the shadow of the Hedge. Gandalf and Saradoc talked for a long time after supper, and Merry fell asleep to the crackling of the fire and the sound of low voices. When he woke again, it was quiet. The fire had gone out. The Moon was showing his face against the spangled backdrop of the sky, bathing the Hedge in silvery light. Merry was just about to close his eyes and go back to sleep when he saw Gandalf disappearing through the Hedge. 

The lure of adventure, the call of the forbidden Forest, was too much to resist. Merry slid out of his blankets and followed.

He couldn't find the gap that Gandalf had used, even though he was certain he had come to the right spot. But slipping through amongst the lowest branches wasn't a difficult proposition for a Hobbit lad of Merry's size, and he quickly found himself on the other side of the Hedge. He stood up from his hands and knees. To either side stretched a wide sward of grass-covered land. Ahead loomed the Forest, black in the moonlight.

There was no sign of the wizard.

Merry looked to left and right, then quickly turned and looked behind, but Gandalf had disappeared as completely as if Merry had dreamed following him through the Hedge. Looking back toward the Forest, Merry could make out an opening in the trees. Gandalf must have gone that way. With his long legs, he could easily have reached the trees before Merry managed to get through the Hedge. Without even a thought of returning to his blankets, Merry set off after the wizard.

It was very dark under the trees. He had not gone far before he realized that almost no moonlight penetrated the far off canopy, and Merry suddenly remembered his cousin Bilbo's stories about a far away forest called Mirkwood. He shivered, but then remembered that Cousin Bilbo was mad, and his stories were just make-believe. Everyone said so. Still, now that he was in amongst the trees, he thought maybe he shouldn't have followed Gandalf. His father would not only give him a good hiding if he found out about it, but probably never let him go on a journey again. With a regretful sigh, Merry turned around to go back to the Hedge.

The opening was gone. There was only blackness behind him.

He walked a few slow paces forward, thinking maybe the path had just turned a bend and hidden the opening from him, but there was no sign of it. He heard a rustling all around him. High overhead, it sounded as though a wind swooshed through the branches, but his hair remained unruffled. _The trees can talk to one another,_ his friends said. _They can move,_ he had heard. _They had penned him in._ His heart thumped wildly and in that moment, Merry was more frightened than he had ever been in all his short life. 

It suddenly occurred to him that if he couldn't find his way out, neither could Gandalf. The wizard would be trapped in the Forest forever. Merry had to find him. Surely together, they could find the way back to the camp and Merry's sleeping father.

Merry started walking. He pretended that he couldn't hear the noises around him, but ignoring those soft soughings and high-up creakings was one of the hardest things he had ever done. He had been walking for what seemed like hours when he began to glimpse light through the trees. As he walked in that direction, he began to hear something behind him like nothing he had ever heard before. It was a sort of thumping sliding galloping noise. Merry stood and listened to it for a moment, then realized that it was coming right at him. It was undoubtedly some monstrous creature out of Cousin Bilbo's tales, a troll, or a goblin, or a giant spider, and it was coming straight for him and was going to eat him whole. 

Merry ran. He ran until his lungs were bursting and he thought his heart would beat its way right out of his chest, and behind him, the noise kept getting louder and nearer. All thoughts of the wizard fled, and all he wanted was to get away. The light ahead of him grew brighter, and he made for it, certain that the horrible beast behind couldn't stand the bright light of the Moon. He pitched out of the trees, and then something grabbed him and swung him high into the air.

"No!" he shrieked. "No!" He struggled, kicking and flailing, but to no avail. Whatever had grabbed him simply folded him tightly into its body. A sudden light flared.

"Master Meriadoc!" a voice rumbled. "Stop that nonsense at once!"

Merry went limp with relief. "Gandalf!" 

"Yes, indeed, my boy."

The arms that held Merry loosened and he was turned so that he was sitting in the crook of an elbow. He craned his head up and back, but couldn't get more than an impression of dark hair and beard and kindly eyes. 

"Thank you, Aragorn," the wizard said, apparently to the Man holding Merry. "Now, then, Master Meriadoc, what did you think you were doing?" He looked at Merry with none of the gentleness or kindness to which the boy was accustomed. "Well? I'm waiting for an explanation, Master Meriadoc!" And Gandalf leaned forward until his fierce eyes were level with Merry's and boring into them. Merry gabbled out his tale, the words spilling out of him like water over a cliff.

Gandalf straightened, then leaned on his lit staff. When Merry finished speaking, the wizard exchanged looks over the boy's head with the stranger. 

"A brave lad," the Man commented.

"Indeed," Gandalf replied. He shook his head and sighed. "For following me when you had no business doing so, Master Meriadoc, I think you have been fully punished by your fright. But for your bravery in coming to rescue me when you thought I needed it, I give you my thanks. I think perhaps this matter won't need to be mentioned to your father, eh, Merry?" The wizard smiled his familiar crinkly-eyed smile, and suddenly it was all right again. 

"But what about the monster?" Merry asked.

The Man still holding Merry chuckled, but Gandalf laughed outright. "This young hobbit wants to meet the monster who chased him through the Forest," he called. "Come out, my friend."

The thumping sliding noise came again, and the oddest thing Merry had ever seen slid into the clearing. It was a sleigh, but rather than drawn by horses or ponies, the traces held four very large rabbits. The sleigh -- which shouldn't have been able to slide on the grass, Merry's mind told him -- came to a stop nearby, and a strange figure stepped from the back. "Is the boy all right now?" a reedy voice asked.

"Yes, Radagast. Come meet Master Meriadoc. His father is the Master of Buckland."

"Oh, indeed?" The figure came closer. It was another Man, Merry saw, but nothing like the Men who had come to visit Merry's father, nor yet again like the Man holding him. He was...shaggy, and craggy, and bits of him looked something like a tree, while other bits of him looked something like a bear. His beard was fully as long as Gandalf's, but even wilder, and...

"Is that an owl?" Merry asked, enchanted.

"Indeed so, my boy, indeed so. This is Hurrrr-urrrrr." The owl blinked at Merry from the middle of the strange man's beard and nodded. 

Merry clapped his hands together. "Are you a wizard, too?"

Radagast smiled. "I am. And I am very sorry that I frightened you, my lad. But if you're very good, perhaps I'll give you a ride on my sleigh later, yes?"

Merry straightened in excitement. "Oh! Yes! May I?"

The Man laughed and Gandalf smiled, but Radagast only nodded solemnly. "We have a bargain, young master."

"If Aragorn puts you down, Merry, will you promise not to wander off?" Gandalf asked.

Merry nodded. "Yes, Gandalf." He was lowered to the ground and set gently on his feet. The Man, Aragorn, was very tall. He smiled down at Merry.

Over his head, a conference started. Merry settled onto the ground and looked up at the sky. The Moon was high, he saw, but beginning to descend. He lay down on his back, looking up at the Moon and the stars while the voices washed over him....

Some time later, he became aware of being moved very gently. "Come, young hobbit. Time to keep our bargain." There followed a strange swooshing movement, then arms lifted him, carried him a short distance and wrapped him in blankets.

"Sleep now, young Master Meriadoc," Gandalf said quietly. "Sleep, and dream of pleasant things."

Merry snuggled into his blankets and slept. And though he never quite remembered his nighttime journey into the Forest as anything more than a vague dream, he was never afterward afraid to venture among the trees.


End file.
